In society, laypeople have their own set of
relationships; in Buddhism, monastics have master-disciple relationships and
relationships between Dhamma brothers and sister. The four part Vinaya says,” A
master looks upon his or her followers as if they were sons and daughters; and
the followers look upon their master as if he or she were a father or mother.
And when they respect one another, the right Dhamma will be held longer”. “The
teacher is the basis of a student’s learning; the student who has a teacher can
be compared to a tree with roots”. “After achieving the Way, one appreciates
the kindness of a teacher “. At times, the relationship between a Buddhist
master and disciple isdeeper than that
of kinship. For example, during the Jin Dynasty, Tanyin fell dangerously ill.
His disciple Fakuang, repented for his master with great devotion for seven
days and seven nights. In Yuan Dynasty, even when Yinjian met with hardships of
war, he continued to serve his master, Zhongguan Zhaogong, with the same
devotion, earning him the respect of the Yuan troops. Bumao waited on Chan
Master Niaoke for sixteen years before he was given instruction and finally
realized his true nature. In the Song Dynasty, Huaizhi reverently obeyed the
last wishes of Zhenjing Kewen, his teacher, steadfastly refusing to become the
abbot of the temple and to lead others

As a result, many
stories of moving deeds have been passed down to us. For example, there is the
story of novice Huixin’s mother, who encouraged him to work hard and strive for
Boodhahood and not for the glory bestowed by the emperor. There is also the
moving story of Dongshan Liangjie, who, in his letter of Farewel to My Mother,
indicated his resolve to seek the way. Altough his mother wept day and night,
she put aside her son and sent him a reply, encouraging him to cultivate
himself so that he might achieve awakenment.

In promoting filial
devotion, Buddhism not only promotes “filial piety”, “making offerings to
monasteries, and “respecting the practice of purification” as its teachings,
but it goes even further by stressing the importance of such deeds. “The
blessings accrued from caring for one’s parents are the same as those from
making offerings to the Buddha. Filial respect should always be on one’s mind”.
“Even if one were to carry one’s father on the left shoulder and one’s mother
on the right shoulder, so that one’s skin was pressed to the bone and through
the bone to the marrow, around Mt.Sumeru for countless kappas, until one’s
blood flowed and one’s ankles gave away. It would still be insufficient to
repay the kindness of one’s parents”. These examples are a clear indication of
how important filialness is in Buddhism.

A young Buddhist from Bangladesh residing in New York is getting
ordained by Ven. K. Piyatissa at the Srilankan Vihara at 214-22 Spencer
Ave in Parkside Hills, Queens, at 7-30 p.m. on Friday, May 29, 2009. He
is Mr Pranajit Kumar Barua, an IT professional working with a company
in Manhattan. The ordination ceremony is being attended by his parents,
his relatives and friends from New York, New Jersey, Virginia,
Michigan, Massachsettes and other States. Mr Pranajit Barua has invited
every one to kindly make it convenient to attend the ceremony on May
29, as well as the Sangha Dana he is arranging at Srilankan Vihara on
Sunday, May 31, at 10.00 a.m. For more information, please contact Mr
Nayan Barua on 347….

Buddhist filialness
transcends ordinary filialness. In the past, most people believed that “from
our parents we receive our bodies and they are not to be harmed”. Throughout
the Buddhist scriptures there are examples of people who strive to become
models of filialness. The Buddha “carried his father’s coffin” and spoke the
Dhamma to his mother. The Buddha was honored in three realms for his
benevolence and filialness.

There aare many other examples. The honoured
Maudgalyayana sought to free his mother from the suffering of the realm of
hell. Sariputta before entering Parinibbana, made a special trip home to say
good-bye to his mother and repay her kindness; during the Ming dynasty,
Venerable Master Ouy sought to prolong the life of his ill mother with sincere
prayers; during the period of Chinese Republic, the monk Xuyun worshiped for
three years at Mt. Wutai to rerepayhis mother’s kindness. Then there are the
examples of Daoming who wovemat for his mother; Shibei who achieved the way to
repay his father; Daopi’s sincerity towards his father’s bones; and Zongying
who recited the Buddha’s name to save his mother. All these examples serve to
show that although those who have left the home live by a different set of
relationships, they have not forsaken the filial duty of caring for their
parents.

The giant
pagoda at the Burmese Buddhist Vihara in New Jersey is nearing
completion. A special function is being arranged at the Vihara at 63
Gordon Corners Raod, Manalappan, New Jersey 07726 (Tel: 718-622-8019) with the following program:

Focus on SC/STs, Maya warns top cops

Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 4:49 PM

__._,_.___

Focus on SC/STs, Maya warns top copsExpress news service Posted online: Tuesday , May 26, 2009 at 0233 hrsLucknow : After having done with grilling ministers and legislators,Chief Minister Mayawati on Monday blasted the district police chiefs,DIGs, IGs and the DMs, reportedly ordering them to ensure earlyredressal of complaints concerning Scheduled Castes and ScheduledTribes and those of the party workers.Mincing no words, she told the police officers, including the DGP, topersonally look into the grievances related to SCs/STs and not to passit on to the lower-rung officials. The Chief Minister, at the meetingheld to review the law and order situation and the development worksin the districts, made it clear that any officer who ignored Dalitswould not be spared.

Sources in the Home Department said the Chief Minister did not dwellon the dismal performance of the BSP in the Lok Sabha elections butlambasted the SPs for ignoring party workers in their respectivedistricts.

Mayawati also asked the Commissioners and the DMs to ensure that casesrelated to land disputes of SCs/STs pending in courts were expeditedand warned of stern action if the cases weren’t completed withindeadline.

The BSP chief even said that an official who erred in attending tocomplaints related to the Dalits would not be suspended — he wouldrather be demoted or an adverse entry will be made in his characterroll that would hamper his promotion.

The SPs were also asked to visit every place from where crime againstSCs/STs was reported and not to send subordinates there. At the sametime, the DGP was asked to visit the spot where incidents of murder orrape of any SC/ST was reported.

Mayawati reverts to her SC/ST agenda

26 May 2009, 0442 hrs IST, TNN

LUCKNOW: Stung by the electoral setback of coming third in the LokSabha elections in UP, BSP chief and CM Mayawati announced she wasreverting to reverting to her traditional constituency saying her party’s priority is to bring backits SC/ST agenda into focus her traditional constituency saying her party’s priority is to bringback its SC/ST agenda into focus in order to consolidate the party’s support base.

This message was sent loud and clear by the CM in a high-level meetinghere to review the law and order situation and the pace of developmentin UP. In a hard-hitting address to top officials, Mayawati underlinedthe need to give top priority to justice to SC/STs.

She said officials found guilty of any lapse in enforcing thegovernment’s priority programmes would be punished severely. ‘‘I wouldnot mind even demoting IAS officers and sending the guilty to jail,’’the CM said, adding that confidential reports of habituallyindisciplined officers would be marked to such an extent that theynever get promotions in their career.

Besides, district magistrates, district police chiefs, and divisionalcommissioners, the meeting was attended by top civil and policeofficers, including cabinet secretary, chief secretary, DGP andprincipal secretary, home.

This was the first such meeting after the Lok Sabha poll. Prior tothis, the CM had met her ministers, legislators and partyfunctionaries separately. The return to SC/ST agenda was due to theparty’s poor performance in the just concluded Lok Sabha poll.Mayawati may reengineer her ’social engineering’

New Delhi, May 25 : The Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP), founded by lateKanshiram by mobilising SC/STs, might soon have to rethink over its‘Sarvajan’ agenda, following its unimpressive performance in thepolls.

The focus on ‘Sarvajan’(entire society) had taken precedence over theparty’s original thrust on ‘Bahujan’(Majority, meaning ScheduledCastes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward castes) in the Lok Sabhaelection.

The self-appraisal going on in the organisation after the poll outcomehas yielded that one of the main reasons for the unexpected resultswas that SC/STs found their agenda diluted and they simply did notfeel enthused enough to come out to vote, party sources told UNI.

‘’Marathon stock taking was happening in the party, as a result ofwhich party supremo Mayawati may be compelled to review its strategyof focussing on high castes in a bid to increase its vote bank,'’ theysaid.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has bagged 20 seats from Uttar Pradesh ascompared to 19 in the 2004 election, whereas, it was expecting to getover 30 seats, basing its hope on its resounding victory in theAssembly elections in 2007.

Although the party increased its votes by two per cent as compared tothe 2004 general elections, (It got 27 per cent votes this timeagainst 25 per cent in 2004), the fact that its vote share went downconsiderably as compared to Assembly elections held in 2007 wascausing great worry to the party. In the last Assembly polls, theparty had got over 30 per cent votes.

Ms Mayawati has started the process of finding what went wrong and inthis connection she has held brain-storming sessions with herministers and party legislators.

The Chief Minister has warned the ministers to perform or quit andasked legislators to coordinate with the officers to ensure thatpeople’s problems were quickly disposed and the ongoing developmentschemes and programmes were completed in a time bound manner.

Referring to the difficulties affecting proper implementation ofschemes and programmes, she asked the legislators to bring them to hernotice immediately.

‘’The message has gone clear that schemes and programmes of MsMayawati did not benefit Dalits, a problem compounded by her party’sdilution of SC/ST agenda at the political level,'’ said a partyworker.

This time the party had fielded around 20 Brahmin candidates, of whomfive have won. However, in the reserved constituencies, the Brahminvote could not be transferred to SC/ST candidate. Instead, it went tothe Congress, said a party insider.

It is generally believed that the party’s massive success in theAssembly polls two years ago was due to what is called ’socialengineering’ done by Ms Mayawati and her close confidant Satish Misra.Under the strategy, the party put up a large number of candidates ofhigh castes and declared that it was widening its focus to encompassthe interest of all the sections of the society than only of SC/STs.

However, it is felt that this endeavour to bridge the gap between thehigh castes and SC/STs was confined to the level of party leaders andorganisational structure and could not percolate down to the masses.

It may be pointed out that hit by the poll outcome, Ms Mayawati hasdissolved all the Bhaichara samitis constituted to increase herparty’s engagements with other castes in a bid to expand its base.

Party insiders also say that one more important cause of the party’sunimpressive performance was the organisational weakness.

Not much attention was paid to the monitoring and strengthening of theparty units at the district and lower levels. That also led toselection of wrong candidates in the absence of any proper feedbackfrom the lower units.

In fact, a scholar of Uttar Pradesh politics feels that Ms Mayawati inthe run up to the Lok Sabha elections could not pay desired attentionto the party matters in the state in an effort to give her party apan-India base to stake claim for prime ministership of the country.

Party workers also felt that the Maywati administration also failed toprevent atrocities against SC/STs, which made them apathetic to theparty, and in the absence of any choice, they went back to their oldparty -the Congress.

In places where SC/STs did not want to vote in favour of Congresscandidates, they just did not bother to come out to vote at all.

‘’The bureaucracy simply did not cooperate with Ms Maywati in checkingharassment of SC/STs and the Chief Minister could not make them changetheir attitude,'’ they say.

— UNI

SC/ST, Poor and Needy students We help Freely Admission in to college

Admission in to Hostel

after +2 what to study? where to stay? How can get government scholorship?

New Delhi (PTI): Former Chief Ministers
Vilasrao Deshmukh, Virbhadra Singh and Farooq Abdullah will be inducted
into the Union Cabinet on Thursday when the Union Council of Ministers
will be expanded to take in 59 more ministers including new entrants
Mallikarjun Kharge and M.K. Alagiri.

Other Cabinet ministers to be sworn in
are DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran and A. Raja, Congress MPs M.S. Gill, Kumari
Selja, Subodh Kant Sahay, G.K. Vasan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Kantilal
Bhuria (all elevated from the level of Ministers of State) and Congress
leader Mukul Wasnik, who was Minister of State in the Narasimha Rao
government.

With Thursday’s expansion, the total
strength of the Council of Ministers will go upto 79 including Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. On Friday, Mr. Manmohan Singh and 19 Cabinet
Ministers were sworn-in.

Mr. Virbhadra Singh, a former Chief
Minister of Himachal Pradesh, has been elected from Mandi while Mr.
Abdullah from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Deshmukh, a former
Maharashtra Chief Minister, is not a member of either House of
Parliament.

Ending suspense 11 days after the Lok
Sabha results, a PMO press release giving the names of the new
ministers said the Prime Minister has recommended to President Pratibha
Patil for their inclusion in the ministry.

Prominent among the new ministers to be
sworn in tomorrow are Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat who won from
Thiruvananthapuram, Sachin Pilot and Praneet Kaur, wife of former
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and Agatha Sangma, daughter of
former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma.

Thursday’s expansion will also see induction of six Trinamool Congress MPs, four from DMK and one from Muslim League.

Other Congress leaders to make it to
the Council of Ministers are Bharatsinh Solanki, Tusharbhai Chaudhary,
Arun Yadav, Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, R.P.N. Singh, Vincent Pala and
Pradeep Jain.

The TMC members to be sworn in are Saugata Ray, Dinesh Trivedi, Sisir Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy and Mohan Jatua.

Ministers of State from DMK will be
S.S. Palanimackam, who retains his place, actor D. Napolean, S.
Jagathrakshakan and S. Gandhiselvan.

Of the 59 to be inducted on Thursday,
42 belong to Congress, taking the total number of ministers from the
party to 60, including the Prime Minister.

Ministers to be sworn in on Thursday
will include seven of DMK, six of TMC, two of NCP and one each of
National Conference and Muslim League.

Out of 42 from Congress, 10 will be
Cabinet ministers, six with Independent charge and 26 Ministers of
State. In all, Congress will have 28 Cabinet Ministers, including the
Prime Minister.

Surprisingly, there is no
representative in the Cabinet from Uttar Pradesh where Congress saw a
substantial revival in the Lok Sabha elections.

Team Manmohan: The 78-member Council of Ministers

New Delhi (PTI): There will be 33
Cabinet Ministers, seven Ministers of State with Independent charge and
38 MoS in the new 78—member Council of Ministers to be headed by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh.

Ethics serve an
important function in the hormonising of human relations. In a family there are
close relationships between father and mother, brothers and sisters, uncles and
aunts, husband and wife, brothers and sisters-in-law, among many others.
However, order and harmony in a family can only be guaranteed aintaining
hierarchical ethical relationships based on love and respect between young and
old.

Buddhism is made of
four groups – bhikkus, bhikkunis, upasikas, upasakas and it stresses the value
of ethics. Family members ‘should treat one another with love and respect.’Family
members should share things with each other. In our daily lives together, we
should be tender in word and look. Buddha’ teachings are deeply and concretely
imbuedwith humanistic charecterand the
strength of life.

The family is at the
center of every person’s life.Human ethics begin with filial piety, which is
practical basis of ethics and morality. For this reason, BVuddhism advocates
filial piety as the first and foremost of all human relationships. Buddhism
holds the filial devotion to one’s parents and repaying parental kindness is
one of the four great kindnesses to one’s elders.

Buddhism holds that a
person should “do one’s utmost one’s entire life to care for one’s parents”.
“care for your parents and elders amiably and with respectful words”. Buddha
goes a stepfurther and teaches that
“food, drink and even treasure are not sufficient to repay the kindness of
one’s parents ; leading them to know and believe the right Dhamma is the only
way to repay one’s parents for their kindness”.

Filialness could be
divided into three levels. The caring of one’s parents during their lifetime
and cremating themwith the properties
upon death. Which is lesser filialness.; Honouring one’s parents and ancestors
is moderate filialness. And only leading one’s parents from the cycle of birth
and death can be counted as greater filialness. Converting one’s parents is the
truest way to repay parental kindness. In other words, If one’s parents are not
upholding the precepts, then lead them to dwell with the prohibitions; if one’s
parents are by nature stingy, then awaken in them wisdom. If a child can do this,
then that is the first step towards repaying parental kindness.

MAYAWATI OUR BEST HOPE

Despite all the charges levelled against her, Mayawati remains our
hope, our only hope, our best hope in a Hindu dominated India.

It has been said that when Lord Buddha lay dead underneath a twin
sal tree at Kushinara, the sal tree blossomed out of season and
showered flowers on his body, and celestial music rent the air. When
Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), lay dead at
Delhi, 42 monks from all corners of India came and chanted Buddhist
hymns. His protégé,
Kumari Mayawati, never missed recalling our Buddhist past in every
message that went out from her in the just concluded Parliamentary
elections. Her appeals to restore Buddhism to the land of its birth
fell on deaf ears. Her critics merely saw her as a political rival who
needed to be dumped along with her statues and the statues of her
mentors.

No party, no politician ever mentioned our ancient religion of
Buddhism and our glorious past, nor criticized the present caste-ridden
and deity-infested religion breeding superstitions, promoting bribery
and corruption, sexual misconduct, and the taking of alcohol and drugs.
Buddhism has been dumped along with its moral code Panch Shil.

A few years ago, it was unthinkable that a Scheduled Caste woman would ever
become the Chief Minister of the largest Brahmin dominated State of
Uttar Pradesh. What was wrong in a Chief Minister aspiring to be the
Prime Minister, when no one else would even think of sponsoring an
untouchable, not even Jagjiwan Ram of the past who was magnanimously
given the title of Deputy Prime Minister ? How misleading is our
mainstream media! if Rajiv Gandhi,
forget Bofors. But remember Brahmin
bribe-giver Narasimha Rao. Not Buddha Dhamma, but dhamma of Jagatguru
Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati!

When salt loseth its taste, with what shall it be salted? We found
fault with the Britishers for all our faults, and when they left and we
governed ourselves for the last 62 years, we gave free vent to our
wild, beastly, instinct of stealing left and right that led to the
world’s largest stolen money, a massive Rs 75 lakh crores, stashed away
in secret Swiss bank accounts. At the height of the public agitation
that surfaced, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advised “hush, hush!” for
fear that account holders might transfer away those funds. In the
elections just concluded, Election Commission officials have seized
hundreds of bagfuls of currency notes, bottles of drugs and alcohol and
arrested many of the party workers. Is this the kind of battle that we
should be fighting in an election? In our country, political battle
inevitably brings in all kinds of immoral ammunition. An association of
the election watching NGOs, called NEW, have disclosed that 533 newly
elected members of the Lok Sabha have among them 150 criminals, of
which Congress has 41, BJP 42, Shiv Sena 8. There are 300 crorepatis (1
crore=10 million) in the new Lok Sabha, 138 with Congress, 58 with BJP,
14 with Samajwadi Party, and the rest with other parties and
independents. Acclaimed as the largest free democracy in the world, it
also mirrors, among other things, our criminals, our black money,
alcohol and drugs, bribery and corruption that have tained it.

Kumari Mayawati has begun an ethical struggle, short of a religious
war - a war between morality and immorality, a war between Buddhist
ethics and the ethics of Narasimha Rao and Jagatguru Sankaracharya
Jayendra Saraswati on one side and Lord Buddha, Narayana Guru, Periyar,
Ambedkar and Kumari Mayawati herself on the other. Knowingly and
unknowingly, frustrated against powerful opponents, an unsophisticated
rural rustic untouchable of yesterday, Kumari Mayawati seem forced to
do tit-for-tat not only in the political compulsions of elections but
remain in power as the Chief Minister of the largest State of Uttar
Pradesh with a population larger than the populations of Britain,
France and Germany combined. She has succeeded and would continue to
succeed even in her imperial dreams, but I wonder if she would not like
to follow her distant mentor Emperor Asoka who at the height of his
successful military conquests stopped to think and pause, and thought
of conquering himself.

The phenomenal success of BSP’s unique electioneering campaign in
the State assembly elections of of Uttar Pradesh in 2007 has given us
many lessons. Waking up the local voters to the memories of fallen
heroes of the locality - not fossil characters from the puranas -
through stirring songs and slogans, by bands of trained, disciplined
volunteers in uniforms from the state level to the district, way down
to the booth levels, supported by the vigilant camera-equipped election
officials are the sights and sounds still fresh in the minds of the
voters in U.P. If repeated in Uttar Pradesh as well as in other States,
that kind of campaigning is bound to yield unimaginable results. The UP
campaign covered idols, loud and clear, from not only Uttar Pradesh but
also from other States like Ambedkar from Maharashtra, Periyar from
Tamil Nadu, Narayana Guru and Ayyankali from Kerala, and others, with
the overriding presence of Lord Buddha everywhere. It needs no
retelling that Buddha’s footprints are everywhere in Uttar Pradesh and
the neighbouring State of Bihar. BSP needs to re-energize itself on its
success of the 2007 elections, taking corrective actions on its lapses
in the 2009 parliamentary elections.

Most of us who campaigned for Mayawati and BSP remain buoyant on the
future prospects. We Buddhists had also cherished a dream that one of
the first acts of Mayawati on becoming the Prime Minister would be her
embracing Buddhism.

The next general election however is five years away. The country
can wait. Mayawati would still be young at 58 in 2014. Some of us
however are far too old as octogenarians. What a blessing it would be
if Kumari Mayawati fulfills the dream of her mentor Kanshi Ram and
millions of her admirers if she decides to embrace Buddhism now,
reigning as the Chief Minister of the mighty State of Uttar Pradesh, as
Emperor Ashoka of Pataliputra did and initiated a Buddhist missionary
crusade that reached far and wide. It would be a landmark event in the
history of Buddhist revival in India. It would be a sarvajan function
for all the peoples of all the States in India, and for all the
countries of the world whose heads of state would also be invited.
Buddha’s teachings would be a beacon of hope for a world in turmoil.

We all wish well for a second term for Dr Manmohan Singh at the helm
of affairs in India. Some of his recent utterances do keep ringing in
our ears - about the apartheid in our country, about his deep concern
for internal security rather than external, and so on.

LUCKNOW: Sunday saw BSP MLAs getting chief minister Mayawati’s piece
of mind. She held separate meetings with party legislators at her
official
residence here — 5 Kalidas Marg — to review the progress of
development works being carried out in their respective areas and to
assess the reason for BSP’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said that MLAs, particularly those in whose constituencies BSP
did not do well in the Lok Sabha elections, were pulled up by the
chief minister. She, however, also listened to their woes. These MLAs,
in a collective meeting on Friday last, had blamed bureaucrats for not
cooperating with them. They repeated the same on Sunday. Subsequently,
Maya directed officers to ensure quick disposal of the difficulties
pointed out by the legislators. She has already transferred district
magistrates and police chiefs of many districts where BSP suffered
defeat.

The chief minister also asked the legislators to coordinate with the
officers for quick disposal of people’s problems and also ensure that
the eligible persons were benefited by the schemes and programmes of
the state government. She has directed the legislators to go to their
respective constituencies and ensure that the ongoing development
schemes and programmes were completed in a time bound manner.

Referring to the difficulties affecting proper implementation of
schemes and programmes, Mayawati has directed party legislators to
bring them to her notice immediately. She had held a meeting with
council of ministers and government officers on May 22 and another
meeting on May 23 with the ministers. During these meetings she
reviewed the progress of departmental programmes. In this series, she
met the legislators on Sunday and conducted area-wise review.

India Abroad the largest India community weekly in the world has
addressed the caste factor in America under the Editorship of George
Joseph.

In this issue we have three of our own prominenet anti-caste
speakers– Raju kamble, Dr. Sakya Mohan and Mr. Michael Thaver. On the
otherside of the fence is prominent Lawyer of Hindu American
Foundation, Suhag Shukla.

I urge to all who can read this message to read this magazine on the net—www.indiaabro ad.com,friday
,22may, 2009 or ia.rediff/index. html , or go the local Indian
grocessary store or public librarty but you MUST register your views
know otherwise your enemies voice becomes the truth and your
communities realities are burried in the superficialities of their
arguements denying the horrors of caste system.

Our silence means betrayal of our communities who continue to be crushed under the burden of the caste syste.

So write in a civil language ,based on your experience, facts and
argue your view like a good lawyer in the Court of law to defend his
client. Here your arguements will be heard in the eye of Court of
Public opinion of the world.

Please write concise, not pages after pages, as the Letter to Editor column has limited space.

In a major revamp after the Lok Sabha
polls disappointment, the BSP has decided to sideline party hoppers and
leaders with criminal background and focus on expanding its base among
backward castes.

The decision was
taken by party supremo Mayawati who had dissolved all district level
and caste based committees after the party bagged only 20 of the 80 Lok
Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, far short of its expectation.

“As decided by the
party supremo Mayawati during a meeting with the senior functionaries
on May 20, the state had been divided in 10 zones and new zonal
coordinators have been appointed,” party sources said in Lucknow.

They said that the
zonal coordinators had been asked to induct only active workers having
clean image in the party organisation while sidelining “party hoppers”.

“It had been made
clear by the party supremo that those having criminal background or bad
image should be shown the door,” the sources said, adding “that those
who had joined the party due to their vested interest will also be
shown the door.”

BSP begins revamp of party structure

Special Correspondent

Mayawati doesn’t want a repeat of LS poll performance

Organisational structure divided into 11 zones

Panchayati Raj Minister Babu Ram Kushwaha to meet MLAs twice a week

LUCKNOW: With the Bahujan Samaj Party’s average performance in the
Lok Sabha elections behind her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati
has set in motion the process of revamping the party structure.

The exercise, initiated after a marathon meeting with MLAs,
Ministers and coordinators on Wednesday, is aimed at strengthening the
organisation. Ms. Mayawati does not want a repeat of the BSP’s
performance in the Lok Sabha elections, in which the party won a mere
20 seats out of the 80 at stake in the State.

For better coordination, the organisational structure has been
divided into 11 zones, which have been put under the charge of
coordinators. According to a BSP spokesperson, the post of divisional
in-charge, which was created before the elections, has been abolished.
Now the party in-charge will be appointed at the Lok Sabha level.

No sacking of ministers

The Chief Minister sacked several coordinators, who were tasked with
enlisting the support of different castes. Ms. Mayawati, however,
stopped short of sacking at least half-a-dozen ministers for the
party’s poor performance. A late-night BSP statement scotched rumours
that some ministers had been asked to put in their papers.

The other significant change related to complaints of MLAs, who
attributed the party’s losses in several key constituencies to the
“arrogant and haughty conduct of officers and ministers.” Ms. Mayawati
asked Panchayati Raj Minister Babu Ram Kushwaha to meet the MLAs twice
a week in the party office here and report to her on their demands. She
has also asked the MLAs to prepare for the Vidhan Sabha elections due
in 2012.

A POOL OF WATER

Commentary: The Lord Buddha explains how an impure mind leads one to not understand that which is beneficial to oneself and/or others and does not allow for insights leading to higher states like Nibbana, and a pure minddoes lead one to understand that which is beneficial to oneself and/or others and does
allow for insights leading to higher states like Nibbana.
Please note that an unenlightened mind can be a highly volatile and
unstable entity. Just as long as one subscribes to the negativities
within the mind the mind will remain impure and as soon as one lets go
of those negativities the mind will once again become pure (return to
its orginal pure state).
One should develop positive counter qualities to further guard against
mental negatives and to further purify and strengthen the mind. It is
equally important to not develop aversion towards the negativities
within the mind or attachment towards the positive states within the
mind (as they are impermanent) which can not only be detrimental to
one’s mental balance but also further defiles the mind.

45.
“Suppose there were a pool of water — sullied, turbid, and muddy. A man
with good eyesight standing there on the bank would not see shells,
gravel, and pebbles, or shoals of fish swimming about and resting. Why
is that? Because of the sullied nature of the water. In the same way,
that a monk with a sullied mind would know his own benefit, the benefit
of others, the benefit of both; that he would realize a superior human
state, a truly noble distinction of knowledge & vision: Such a
thing is impossible. Why is that? Because of the sullied nature of his
mind.”

Explanation: The Lord Buddha explains that just as one cannot see shells, pebbles, gravel, fish etc in a muddy pool of water; a person whose mind is defiled by various impurities will not be able to understand that which is beneficial to themselves and/or others and will not be able to gain any superior insights enabling higher realizations such as Nibbana.

46.
“Suppose there were a pool of water — clear, limpid, and unsullied. A
man with good eyesight standing there on the bank would see shells,
gravel, & pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and
resting. Why is that? Because of the unsullied nature of the water. In
the same way, that a monk with an unsullied mind would know his own
benefit, the benefit of others, the benefit of both; that he would
realize a superior human state, a truly noble distinction of knowledge
& vision: Such a thing is possible. Why is that? Because of the
unsullied nature of his mind.”

Explanation: The Lord Buddha explains that just as one can see shells, pebbles, gravel, fish etc in a clear pool of water; a person whose mind is not defiled by various impurities will be able to understand that which is beneficial to themselves and/or others and will be able to gain superior insights enabling higher realizations such as Nibbana.

End of discourses.

PM, 19 others to be sworn in todayMinisters S M Krishna and M Veerappa Moily,
Mamata Banerjee, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Rajasthan PCC chief C P Joshi are
among the 19 leaders who would be sworn in as Cabinet Ministers in the
new government along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this

Buddhists and Christian fighting poverty

A message from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue,
for the Buddhist feast of Vesakh. A call to work together to combat
that form of poverty which is a humiliation of human dignity, distress
and marginalization.

A word of thanks for the “dear Buddhist friends,” because of their
“inspiring witness of non-attachment and contentment,” together with an
invitation to “fight” that form of poverty “that prevents people and
families from living as befits their dignity; a poverty that offends
justice and equality and that, as such, threatens peaceful
co-existence.” These are the two points that form the basis of the
message for the feast of Vesakh released today by the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Vesakh is the most important
Buddhist feast, and recalls the birth, enlightenment, and death of the
Buddha, all of which happened during the month of Vesakh. This year,
the feast falls on April 8 in Japan and Taiwan, on May 2 in Korea, and
on May 8 in all the other countries of Buddhist tradition.

In simple and friendly terms, the message expresses the closeness of
Catholics to the Buddhist communities. “Together,” it says, “we are
able not only to contribute, in fidelity to our respective spiritual
traditions, to the well-being of our own communities, but also to the
human community of the world.”

Recalling Benedict XVI’s words about a poverty “to be chosen” and a
poverty “to be fought” (message for the World Day for Peace 2009;
homily at the Mass on January 1), the Pontifical Council expresses its
appreciation for the fact that “monks, nuns, and many lay devotees
among you embrace a poverty ‘to be chosen’ that spiritually nourishes
the human heart, substantially enriching life with a deeper insight
into the meaning of existence.”

At the same time, it specifies that “for a Christian, the poverty to
be chosen is that which allows one to tread in the footsteps of Jesus
Christ. By doing so a Christian becomes disposed to receive the graces
of Christ, who for our sake became poor although he was rich, so that
by his poverty we might become rich (Cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9).” The
message also recalls the “poverty to be fought”: “affective, moral, and
spiritual poverty,” the marginalization of those who live in rich
societies and the “various forms of malaise despite their economic
prosperity,” and invites the Buddhist communities to “promote the
goodwill of the whole human community.”

The chief of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the CM of Uttar
Pradesh, Mayawati has decided on Tuesday (May 19) to give outside
support to the new Congress-led UPA government. BSP’s support will help
the Congress-led UPA to go well ahead of the halfway mark in
parliament. Congress-led UPA has bagged 263 seats in the recently
concluded general elections.

While announcing her party’s support to UPA the BSP supremo said
that there is no demand or any condition for offering the support.
According her, all the 21 MPs of BSP will offer their support to the
new government without any condition. Mayawati also informed that she
has notified party leader Satish C. Mishra to meet the President and
hand over the letter of support.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, which fought the Lok Sabha elections under
the Third Front, has taken the new decision of supporting the UPA
government to keep BJP out of the power. Mayawati said that after the
declaration of election results she had congratulated both Manmohan
Singh and Sonia Gandhi for the UPA’s resounding victory. Apart from
BSP, the JD(S) has also announced support of its three MPs. In the 15th
Lok Sabha elections, Congress has gained the upper hand by winning 206
seats alone. The victory has also allowed Congress to dictate terms as
far as distributing portfolios is concerned.

On the backfoot: UP Chief Minister and BSP president
Mayawati during a poll performance review meeting in Lucknow on
Tuesday.

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party
president Mayawati has extended her party’s unconditional support from
outside to a UPA government. Party general secretary Satish Chandra
Mishra will submit a letter of support to President Pratibha Patil and
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the BSP national executive
and parliamentary board held at Ms. Mayawati’s 5 Kalidas Marg official
residence here on Tuesday. The meeting, which was presided over by the
Chief Minister, was called to review the BSP’s election performance.

Ms. Mayawati’s move is being seen as an attempt to forestall the
possibility of her political isolation in Uttar Pradesh. On the
election trail she campaigned extensively against the Congress, but now
the BSP and the SP find themselves in the same boat.

With 20 MPs, the BSP emerged as the third largest party in Uttar
Pradesh, behind the Samajwadi Party with 23 MPs and the Congress, which
has 21 elected representatives. The BSP’s final count was way behind
the expectations of the Chief Minister and senior party leaders, who
expected a tally of 35 to 45. Mr. Mishra had, on the eve of
vote-counting, claimed in New Delhi that the BSP would win 40 to 45
seats in U.P.

In her address, Ms. Mayawati said she had congratulated Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Gandhi after the results came. She
indicated that BSP support to a new government was offered at the
behest of Dr. Singh. Stating that the Prime Minister called her his
younger sister, Ms. Mayawati said Dr. Singh wanted the BSP to adopt a
positive approach to enable the formation of a UPA government and
strengthen the secular forces.

Ms. Mayawati said she had extended the support despite the fact that
the previous UPA government had not given any financial aid to the BSP
government: neither would it come in the future. The Chief Minister
said the UPA government cannot be expected to ameliorate the suffering
of the common man. She said the support had been extended in order to
weaken the communal forces and keep the NDA out of power.

Ms. Mayawati alleged that Muslims were misled by the Congress and
the SP, which was why minority voters did not offer their full support
to the BSP: instead they had voted for the Congress and the SP. With
the shift in the Muslim vote, the upper castes too voted for the
Congress as the BJP did not have winning chances.

The BSP president said that in addition to the party winning 20
seats, in about 50 constituencies its candidates came second in terms
of votes polled.

The BSP’s vote share had gone up from 24.67 per cent to 27.42 per
cent in U.P. The party had emerged as the third largest national party.

On Monday, about 125 chairmen and vice-chairmen of State commissions
and corporations, who enjoyed the status of Ministers of State, were
asked to submit their resignations to Babu Singh Kushwaha, BSP national
general secretary and Ms. Mayawati’s lieutenant.

http://blog.american.com/?p=808

The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute

The Indian Election: Stability Now, Challenges Ahead

By Apoorva Shah

May 18, 2009, 12:59 pm

On
Monday, the Bombay Stock Exchange Index (SENSEX) jumped more than 17
percent after this weekend’s election results in India, in which the
ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) gained 82 seats
in parliament while delivering a resounding defeat to the troublesome
Left, which withdrew its support of the government last year in the
wake of the U.S.-India nuclear deal. Few predicted such a strong
showing by the incumbency: an editorial in The Hindu declared with
“near certainty” that the election would produce a hung parliament.
Instead, Indians voted strongly in favor of the ruling coalition and
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s understated leadership, reassuring
investors and sidelining caste and religion-based parties such as Scheduled Caste
leader Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Hindu-nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But the Congress Party’s impressive mandate also carries the burden
of a slowing economy, need for domestic institutional reform, and
lingering inequalities in health and education. In Uttar Pradesh, the
most populous state, total life expectancy is less than 60 years while
Punjab’s life expectancy is almost 70 years. And Uttar Pradesh’s infant
mortality rates are more than four times higher than those of Kerala,
one of India’s most prosperous states. While India is well-known for
producing top-rate scientists and engineers from elite academies such
as the Indian Institutes of Technology, much of the population still
does not have access to basic education. These discrepancies are more
striking at the state level: while Kerala has primary school attendance
rates of 98.1 percent, only 58.5 percent of children attend primary
school in India’s poorest state, Bihar.

India’s emerging status as a global power is often discussed in
comparison to the rise of China. But look at the population pyramids by
sex and educational attainment below: India today more closely
resembles the China of 1970 rather than the China of 2000. Indian
educated elites may rival their Chinese counterparts, but the vast poor
and lower-middle classes have a long way to go. Considering this, the
strong defeat of populist and left-wing parties in this latest election
is even more surprising.

In the midst of a challenging economic climate, the
biggest hurdles lie ahead.

Parties vie to support Congress-led front

NEW DELHI: The Congress party’s search for numbers in the Lok Sabha
is over with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya
Janata Dal (RJD) and Janata Dal (Secular) handing over letters of
support. This effectively brings the entire fourth front and some of
the constituents of the third front on to the government’s side.

The Samajwadi Party was the first to hand over a letter of support
for the Congress-led government to President Pratibha Devisingh Patil
on Tuesday morning. In the evening the BSP and the RJD followed suit.
The former Karnataka Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, handed over a
letter of support on behalf of the three JD(S) members to Congress
president Sonia Gandhi in the evening and told reporters that his party
had no demands.

The Samajwadi Party and the JD(S) claimed that they submitted their
letters of support in response to a request from Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. Meanwhile, a Rashtrapati Bhavan release said the
President had received letters of support for the Manmohan Singh-led
government from the Bodoland People’s Front, the Sikkim Democratic
Front and the Nagaland People’s Front. The three parties have a member
each in the 15th Lok Sabha.

The Congress now has the support of 316 members. Meanwhile, the
party has also received the letter of support from its pre-poll ally in
West Bengal, Trinamool Congress, which has 19 members.

The day also saw Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi meet Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Gandhi to submit the letter of support
and discuss portfolios. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is said to
be pressing for three Cabinet berths – one each for Mr. Karunanidhi’s
two children, M.K. Azhagiri and Kanimozhi, besides his grand nephew
Dayanidhi Maran. The Congress is not keen on conceding more than two
Cabinet berths to the DMK.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is also learnt to have sent feelers to
the Congress but there is a strong view in the party’s Uttar Pradesh
unit against any alliance with Ajit Singh’s organisation. The Congress,
for its part, is willing to consider the RLD’s overtures only if it
agrees to merge with the party.

Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Rita Bahuguna Joshi has
sent a letter to Ms. Gandhi articulating the State unit’s view that the
Congress should respect the verdict and keep the Samajwadi Party, BSP
and RLD at a distance.

Even as the Congress and its pre-poll allies are scheduled to sit
down together on Wednesday to work out the modalities of government
formation, all are bracing for some hard bargaining on ministerial
berths and portfolios.

Within hours of arch rival Bahujan Samaj Party announcing its decision
to support the United Progressive Alliance government, Samajwadi Party
general secretary Amar Singh on Tuesday met President Pratibha Patil
and handed over a letter of support of the party’s 23 MPs.

Mayawati’s axe falls on 50 party leaders

Lucknow, May 18 (IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)
party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Monday asked for
the resignation of over 50 party leaders heading various corporations,
official sources said.

After becoming chief minister in 2007, Mayawati had given plum postings
to several of her party leaders, with many given red-beacon cars and
enjoying facilities and perks given to ministers of state.

While making the appointments, she had reportedly directed the party
leaders to make all possible efforts for strengthening the party’s base
in their respective regions.

However, Mayawati, who was expecting 40 seats in the Lok Sabha
polls, vented her ire at over 50 party leaders as her party managed to
get only 20 seats.

According to sources, in the coming days Mayawati may take similar
action against several other party leaders over the “poor performance”
of her party.

Lucknow,
May 18 (ANI): Following her party’s below-expectation performance in
Lok Sabha elections, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Chief and Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister Mayawati on Monday sacked chairpersons and members of
all state government corporations.

According to party sources, Over 100 members were summoned to the party
office this evening and were asked to submit their resignations.

On May 17, Mayawati has issued a stern warning to the senior government
officials in the state directing them to solve the problems of the
people.

The directive was issued during a high level meeting to review the law
and order situation and progress of various development works being
carried out by the state government.

“People are still made to run from here and there for their petty
works. Their problems are not solved as per the government directives
issued earlier. This is not acceptable. Those showing laxity in solving
people’s problem will be punished severely,” she said.

The chief minister said she will pay surprise visits to the spots were
the works are being carried out and if she will find any laxity then
the concerned officers would be punished.

She also directed the officials to submit monthly report on the action taken on the complaints of the people.

“The report will be submitted by chief secretary, cabinet secretary,
additional cabinet secretary, director general of police and principal
secretary home,” she said.

Mayawati also asked the chief secretary to call a meeting of all the
district magistrates and senior police officers and apprise them of the
directives. (ANI)

Strange connection or is it natural?

India :

India
is home to the largest number of poor in the world, but the 543 Members
of Parliament, who have been elected to the Lok Sabha, have a combined
asset of Rs 3,075 crore. In a nation where over 28 crore people live
below poverty line, the average asset of the MPs elected to the Lower
House of Parliament works out to be over Rs five crore.

According
to United Nation’s estimates, 80 per cent of Indians live on less Rs
100 a day. Interestingly, the total asset size of the new MPs makes
their congregation more valuable than a vast majority of the public
companies in the country. There are close to 4,700 listed companies in
India, out of which just about 150 companies have a market valuation of
more than Rs 3,000 crore.

There are an estimated 300 MPs with
assets worth Rs one crore or more in the new Lok Sabha, which is nearly
double from the 154 in the 14th Lok Sabha. Telugu Desam Party’s Namma
Nageswara Rao, who has won the election from Khammam in Andhra Pradesh,
leads the tally of MPs with assets worth about Rs 174 crore, followed
by Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal (Rs 131.07 crore).
Jindal has won the election from Kurukshetra in Haryana for the second
time.

In terms of
parties, Congress has as many as 138 crorepati MPs, followed by
Bharatiya Janata Party’s [Images] 58, Samajwadi Party’s 14 and Bahujan
Samaj Party’s 13. Besides, there are 11 from Dravida Munnettra
Kazhagam, nine from Shiv Sena , eight from the Janata Dal - United,
seven from NCP and six each from Biju Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress.

Please
note that of every 4 MPs 1 has a criminal case against him. SO, do we
elect rich or criminals? Is it if we want to be rich we have to resort
to crime and vice versa? I am sure a common man can never reach
parliament either he is a crook or has a sufficiently suitable hook. Of
course, exceptions are every where; let us call them intervention of
fate. What do you think?

Uttar Pradesh all set for ‘mini elections’

After the Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh is all
set to witness another political battle, as byelections will have to be
held in 10 assembly constituencies where seven sitting legislators were
elected to parliament while the other three resigned to contest.

The two prominent winners among the legislators include senior
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lalji Tandon and Samajwadi Party
(SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Tandon, who won the Lucknow seat, represents the Lucknow West
assembly seat, while Yadav, who won the Mainpuri seat, represented the
Bharthana assembly seat in Etawah district.

Similarly, SP’s Mithlesh Kumar, who represents Powayan assembly
seat, won from the Shahjahanpur seat and the Bahujan Samaj Party’s
(BSP) Dhananjay Singh, a legislator from the Rari assembly seat, won
the Jaunpur seat.

Congress’ Pradeep Aditya Jain, a legislator from the Jhansi assembly
seat, has got elected from the Jhansi seat, while the party’s R.P.N.
Singh, legislator from the Padrauna assembly seat, won the Kushinagar
seat.

Kadir Rana, a legislator of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) from the Morna assembly seat, won the Muzaffarnagar seat.

The three legislators who had resigned include Rajiv Channa, Gauri Shankar and Dhaniram Verma.

Channa, who was a BJP legislator from Moradabad (West) assembly
seat, resigned after he was given a ticket by the BSP to contest the
Lok Sabha polls from the Moradabad constituency.

Gauri Shankar, a SP legislator from the Malihabad assembly seat,
also resigned when he was given a Lok Sabha ticket by the BSP from
Etawah parliamentary seat.

Verma, who was an SP legislator from the Kannauj assembly seat, also
resigned after the BSP made his son, Mahesh Verma its candidate from
Kannauj.

Elections to be really fair and free

Adopt a more expanded and more enriched
concept of what constitutes voter freedom, says Jagatheesan Chandrasekharan

There is still a way to go in
ensuring a truly level playing field for Chief Election Commission,
Chief Justice of India, Government of India, the entire media, parties,
candidates and the voters at large.

As we enter into the final week of the electoral dead-heat, a basic thing is that election must and should be free and fair.

what constitutes a
‘free and fair’ election?

If freedom is merely lack of physical coercion, then it is
reasonable to suggest that Indians exercise their voting rights freely.
There are still some exceptions. There are serious allegations of
coercion in Darjeeling, and other places in West Bengal, and in the
Outer Manipur constituency. It is hard to believe that citizens living
in fear under the shadow of the Maoists and security forces in the
Salwa Judum area of Chhattisgarh exercised their franchise freely. At
the same time, we must take note of the absence of similar reports from
Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, and Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh and,
above all, from the Kashmir valley. The Election Commission and the
entire machinery working under it deserve credit for the intelligent
scheduling of phases, for the careful deployment of security forces,
and for sending out tough signals.

But we need to expand and enrich this excessively narrow definition
of voter freedom. A free election does not merely involve the absence
of direct physical coercion, but also the absence of the possibility of
such coercion. A free election means the lack of fear. The lack of
freedom can have many shades to it.

Landless Dalits who live under perpetual fear of their landlords
will not suddenly become free on the day of voting, except in places
where the Bahujan Samaj Party or other Dalit parties are active. Ethnic
or religious minorities – for example, the Muslims in Gujarat, the
Christians in Orissa and the Chakmas in Mizoram – may not have voted
under truly free conditions. The dread of the security forces in
Kashmir, the possibility of caste violence in Bihar and the
omnipresence of ‘The Party’ in West Bengal point to curtailment of
freedom.

The Election Commission’s special attention to such groups, with the
help of ‘vulnerability mapping,’ was a welcome initiative. But such an
exercise cannot alter the everyday equations of power in an area or
constituency.

Our electoral rolls continue to be faulty, seriously both in rural as well as in urban
centres; they are skewed in a way to systematically exclude
some section of the population or the supporters of a party.So
far the Election Commission has not bothered to see that all the
eligible names are in the voting list. And they are informing the world
that nearly 40% of the names are not found in the voters list and in
many consttuencies voters names have deleted. SC/STs, Muslims and
Christians names have been deliberately by the revenue department as
they are all supporters of the upper caste rulers. hence, the Chief
Election, Judiciary, Executive and the Views Papers and the Caste based
Media are least bothered about Free and Fair elections as the present
system suits them and it is benificial to them. The right to vote as
enshrined in the Consitution has been removed from this back door
method. They have
just redrawn the boundaries of most constituencies, a highly
contentious exercise in any democracy to suit the ruling castes in the
Centre. While the exercise left a lot to
be desired, almost all the voters allege that the delimitation was
partisan and continue to be so.

Identity proof

Voter impersonation can never be there, if all the citizens are included in photo electoral rolls. This is also deliberately not done because it will not benefit the ruling castes in the Centre. In
these days of computerisation within no time photo electrol rolls could
be prepared. Crores of public money is being spent on elections and
preparing such rolls will not even work out to be fraction of the
expenditure. The CEC,
Judiciaray, Executive and the media are quite aware of this, but they
are just closing their eyes as they are comfortable with the current
system.The Electronic
Voting
Machine can definitely eliminate the possibility of fraud at the
counting centre provided the source code of the program in the machine
is made transparent and made public. It is very much possible to create
fraud EVMs. Rigging
in all its forms can come to an end, if a genuine photo electrol rolls
are generated with all the eligible voters names are included in such
rolls. In fact with such photo electrol rolls and unfradulant EVMs the
polling agents along with the Election Officers and staff can go
door-to-door and collect votes.This will ensure 100% voting in any
election. That will never happen with the present rulers in power,
since it will not benefit them.Any party which wants to rule as per the
Constitution only will be able to do this.

Instead of doing this, the EC the whole world saw the unseemly war between the former
and current Chief Election Commissioners and allegations of
partisanship against the current CEC had left the EC with an image
problem. However each one of them will be rewarded for their partisanship by the respective parties they supported.

The government
should salvage the situation by appointing the
new Election Committee representing different political parties, such
as any other Parliamentary committee. Since each and every party
represent different castes and religions, such a committee will ve
represented by different caste and religion groups.Yet the Election Commission is surviving this general
election losing its moral authority. On balance, the EC has not handled violations of the Code of Conduct was not firm and
even handed. No matter what its composition, the EC as an institution is not seen to be neutral. That is bad news for democracy.

However, there is still a way to go in
ensuring a truly level playing field for Chief Election Commission,
Chief Justice of India, Government of India, the entire media, parties,
candidates and the voters at large.As in the recent
elections, the EC allowed the tunnelled vision of the Indian middle
class to shape its initiatives in some respects. Much of its energy was
spent in pursuing relatively small infringements of the letter of the
law while remaining a mute spectator to the gross violation of the
spirit of fair play.

The EC and its observers demanded loads of paper work from
candidates (including a daily account of expenditure in the middle of a
campaign), required written permission for every poster or banner (one
letter each from every house where a poster is to be pasted), strictly
enforced the timing of meetings (leading to mid-sentence termination of
speeches) and insisted on written permission for each campaign vehicle
(including bicycles!). The sight of politicians being made to submit to
some authority may gladden some hearts, but it is hard to see how this
contributes substantially to a fairer election.

Election spending

All that these well-meaning curbs have done is to push the
expenditure underground. Stories of the quantum of election expenditure
in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are simply shocking.This phenomenon is
not confined to the rich States: crores of rupees were spent by
candidates in the Orissa Assembly election.Big money is the
preserve of big parties: some BJP and Congress candidates are believed to have spent
Rs. 30 to 40 crores in all the states. No wonder that most parties seek
‘resourceful’ candidates.

An analysis of the affidavits of all candidates in the first four
phases by National Election Watch shows that the proportion of
‘crorepatis’ (those who have declared assets of more than Rs.1 crore)
has increased from nine per cent in 2004 to over 16 per cent this time.
Among the major parties, this proportion is alarmingly high: 60 per
cent for the Congress, 42 per cent for the BJP,

Similarly, the EC’s curbs on the media are misplaced. The big new
initiative this time was a ban on exit polls in between various phases
of polling. Though it is doubtful whether the ban is legally
sustainable, there seems to be a rationale behind it — namely, the
irresponsible and non-transparent use of opinion polls by an immature
industry unwilling to regulate itself. But it is not clear if this ban,
like most other bans, achieved very much. This gave rise to speculative
reporting, to surrogate polls passing off as ‘analyses’, to the
circulation of many confidential exit polls, and to the acquisition of
a new respectability for satta market rates. This ban is further confirmation that there is no substitute for media self-regulation.

In one respect, some kind of regulation of the media, internal or
external, was badly needed. The restrictions on public campaigns led to
more and more money being invested in the media. The EC has allowed
political advertising on television — this has had far reaching
negative consequences for democracy in much of the global north —
without so much as a national debate on this question. Surrogate
political advertisements — advertisements issued by parties or
candidates in the name of some front organisations — were largely
unchecked.

This time, there was a large scale use of ‘news advertisements’ —
advertisements by parties or candidates that appear on the news pages
and look like news. There were widespread complaints that political
advertisements of this kind were also linked to news coverage and that
those candidates who did not offer such advertisements were simply
blacked out. This gross violation of journalistic ethics does not
appear to have attracted the attention to the Election Commission.

The
News papers are functioning as views papers of their respective
political parties representing different castes and religions. Once
Napolean said that he could face two battalians but not two scribes.
Now it is so. Nobody fears these views papers. The media is worst and
most corrupt than even the political, executive, judiciary system. They
do not command any respect in this Great Prabuddha Bharath.

If we take the ideal of free and fair elections seriously, we need
to move beyond a back-slapping celebration of the success of our
democracy. We have long crossed the stage of seeking external
certification. As a mature democracy, it is incumbent upon us to look
below the surface and for effective ways of tackling the deeper flaws
revealed during this election.

LUCKNOW - Chief Minister Mayawati Wednesday accused the Election
Commission of being biased towards opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh,
reacting sharply to the poll panel’s order to remove the state’s
principal home secretary.

Addressing a hurriedly convened press conference just before flying
off to Maharashtra for her election campaign, Mayawati said: ‘Removal
of the state’s principal home secretary Fateh Bahadur was arbitrary and
has apparently been done simply on the basis of flimsy, false and
one-sided complaints made by some opposition parties.’

Mayawati, who is chief of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, said: ‘The
least that the Election Commission should have done is to authenticate
these complaints before ordering such a drastic step.’

‘In the past also, the poll panel went about ordering the removal of
some district magistrates and superintendents of police, besides some
lower officials without verifying facts, which is not being fair to the
state government.’

She alleged that many new appointments were ‘made directly by the
commission without even seeking a panel from the state government’.

‘The Uttar Pradesh government is committed to strictly adhering to
the norms and rules laid down by the Election Commission and I have
also issued firm directives not only to my officials but also to party
candidates and workers not to allow the slightest violation of the
Election Commission’s model code of conduct.’

‘I would like to make an humble appeal to the Election Commission to
point out any violation in the code of conduct or in the guidelines
given by it. I can assure them that corrective action would be taken
promptly by the state government, but it should not be guided by
baseless and false complaints made by the opposition.’

She warned: ‘If the commission continues with such arbitrary
practices, then let me tell them that the state government will not be
responsible for any untoward incidents like a terrorist strike, a
communal flare-up or any other breakdown of law and order, including
mishaps with some candidate.’

Criticising the Election Commission for transferring a top state official, UP Chief
Minister Mayawati on Wednesday said that such action could demoralise
the officialdom ahead of the first phase of

Mayawati slams EC for transferring top state officer

“Removing of the officer just due to political reasons on basis of their baseless allegation will demoralize
officers of the state due to which law and order problem could erupt in the
state. EC will be responsible if there is any terrorist or Naxal problem or any
incident happens with me or any other leader during campaigning,” Mayawati told
reporters here.

The EC on Tuesday had ordered transfer of UP
principal secretary of home, Fateh Bahadur Singh following complaints from the
opposition.

Assuring the commission that the BSP government in the
state was committed to hold free and fair polls, Mayawati said that she had
given orders to its officers to follow directions of the commission and ensure
that there should be no violation of model code of conduct during the elections.

“I have not only directed the officials, but also party candidates,
office-bearers and workers that they must adhere by the model code of conduct
and cooperate with the government machinery,” she said.

Mayawati alleged that a number of officers including district magistrates and SSPs of
several district were removed by the EC “merely on politically motivated
complaints from the opposition parties without any proper investigation”.

“I would like to request the EC that if it finds any shortcoming in
a particular officer, it must apprise the state government about the facts so
that corrective measures could be taken,” she said.

“Ordering removal of an important officer like principal secretary home who is discharging
his duties with honesty and dedication merely on the basis of baseless
complaints lodged by the opposition parties is not justified,” she said.

The chief minister alleged that the EC had broken the traditions by
appointed DMs and SSPs without asking for panel of officers from the state
government.

“This was against the old tradition where the state
government is asked to give a panel of officer. I have already sent a letter to
the EC in this regard,” she said.

Denied their right, Muslims seethe with rage

Bangalore Bureau

The
names of a large number of minority voters were found missing from the
electoral list

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

The affected: Voters who could not exercise their
franchise showing their electors photo identity cards at Yarabnagar in
Bangalore on Thursday.

Bangalore: Widespread complaints of exclusion of Muslims from
electoral lists were reported from minority-dominated localities across
the three Bangalore Urban parliamentary constituencies on Thursday.

Reporters from The Hindu who visited Yarabnagar,
Madinanagar, Shivajingar, D.J. Halli, Fraser Town and many other
localities found voters angry, yet helpless at being disenfranchised.

“I have lived here for 15 years in a permanent house. Every election
day I have gone to the polling booth right after the morning prayers,”
said a livid Mohammed Rehamath Ullah, the 70-year-old “mutuvalli” of
Khaja mosque in Madinanagar in Bommanahalli, who has never missed his
chance to vote in the Lok Sabha elections since 1962.

There were at least three ways in which people were denied their
right to vote. First was the category of voters with EPICs acquired as
recently as a few weeks ago who found their names missing.

The second was of persons who had voted earlier and who found their names stamped “deleted”.

Thirdly, in many cases names had been changed, mis-spelt or identities duplicated.

Deliberate?

The widespread perception in these localities was that minority
votes had been deliberately eliminated as hundreds of voters found that
they could not exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Ameer Jan, an autorickshaw driver, had taken a day’s off from work
to vote. But when he arrived at Kaverinagar in Bangalore South (booth
numbers 115), he found that his name and those of his mother
Zaibunneesa and wife Parveen Taj were missing in the list.

Disappointment

Holding up his EPIC in one hand and his ration card in the other,
Ibrahim Shariff (60) said: “I have shut my shop to vote, but my name is
not on the list.” Out of the 11 voters in his family, only two had been
included in the list. In this predominantly Muslim and working class
pocket of the city this was only one of many such cases.

Abdul Wahid (57), a welder with the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), had a similar complaint.

Ward no. 79 in Shivajinagar (Bangalore Central) had 806 eligible
voters, but by mid-morning nearly 250 people who had voted in the same
polling booth during the 2008 Assembly elections found their names
missing from the list.

Malar Nisha, a resident of Moore Road in Fraser Town, who got a new
EPIC on March 18, was one of the 14 members of her family who had been
turned away from the polling booth at Sir Ismail Sait Nursery School.

“The only two Muslim families in my lane (G-block) seem to have disappeared from the list,” she said.

At least four wards of Bharatinagar from Bangalore Central
constituency reported cases of missing names. “Out of 1,092 voters on
the roll in part 58 of Bharathinagar, 250 names were missing. The
majority were Muslim,” said Azam, a resident who was keeping track of
voting in four booths in this area.

Anger over missing names culminated in protests in some areas such as Yarabnagar.

There were rumours that some, whose names had been stamped
“deleted”, were being allowed to vote by late evening if they had
identity proof.

The Police Commissioner said: “there is no question of allowing
people to vote if their names do not figure in the electoral roll even
if they possess the EPIC. It is against election rules.”

Krishna Byre Gowda demands repoll

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Congress candidate for Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat
Krishna Byre Gowda has demanded repoll in select polling booths,
alleging that a large number of voters from economically weaker
sections have been deliberately and illegally deleted from the
electoral rolls.

In his complaint to Chief Electoral Officer M.N. Vidyashankar on
Thursday, Mr. Byre Gowda said the Election Commission provided
electoral list on April 1 and a revised list subsequently on April 10.

“Many names in the revised list have been marked ‘deleted’ in the
list provided to the returning officers. How can such large-scale
deletions take place? It’s a deliberate attempt to deny the fundamental
right of the electorate,” he said.

Mr. Byre Gowda said he was appalled that names of only a section of
people have been deleted from the rolls. For example, he showed the
EPIC of Ayesha Banu (WEC3848405) issued on April 8, Salman Khan (WEC
3832540) on April 1 and M.D. Musheer (WEC 3848397) on April 8. “These
names have been deleted in the revised roll,” he said.

Mr. Byre Gowda said such deletions had occurred in the electoral
rolls in the three Bangalore city Lok Sabha constituencies. “What
bemuses me is that such deletions have occurred only in areas where
there are economically weaker sections. You do not find such
large-scale deletions in urban electorate,” he said.

Asked who could be held responsible for this, Roshan Baig,
Shivajinagar MLA, said: “It is obvious that the exclusion has been done
by officials in the Revenue Department.” “The saffronisation of the
official machinery has led to the wholesale deletion of Muslim voters
from the list,” he remarked.

Many could not vote due to defective list

Their names were missing from electoral rolls

Belgaum: A large number of voters in Belgaum and Chikkodi Lok Sabha
constituencies in the district, which went to the polls on Thursday,
lost their once-in-a-five-year opportunity to cast their votes in
parliamentary elections because of defective voter list.

Despite carrying Elector’s Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), a large
number of voters in the two constituencies were forced to return home
as their names were missing from the electoral rolls.

The changes in the polling stations only added to the confusion that
prevailed in almost every polling station in the two constituencies.

Perhaps, this is one of the major reasons behind the less than
expected voter response in the two constituencies, particularly in
Belgaum.

The polling agents of different political parties assisting the
voters outside the polling stations were apparently annoyed over the
manner in which the electoral rolls were prepared.

One of the major mistakes which the polling agents pointed out was
the deletion of certain voters who are alive and continued to reside in
the same place.

At polling station number 164 in Belgaum city, names against serial
numbers 121, 137, 138, 141, 185, 232, 232, 271, 295, 308 and a few
others were missing.

A polling agent, Asif A., said only a few of them were not alive and
he was forced to send others back home as their names were missing.

Citing another example, he showed the electoral roll in respect of
polling station number 163 where the serial number 3,900 was missing.

Voters in several polling stations said though they had voter cards, their names were missing in the voters list.

Sunil K., a voter in Hanuman Nagar, said many voters were not aware of the changes in polling stations hence the confusion.

The voters went to the same polling stations where they had cast
their vote in the Assembly elections held last year when they had to
cast their votes elsewhere.

50 p.c. voter turnout in Gulbarga

GULBARGA: An estimated 50 per cent of the electorate voted in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency on Thursday.

Polling was marred by sporadic incidents of clashes between Congress
and BJP workers and boycott of elections in a few polling booths by
people demanding basic amenities. There were also reports of many
people complaining that their names were missing from the voter list.

Attack

Speaking in a similar tone, the former Minister Kagodu Thimmappa
makes a blistering attack on the BJP Government for pursuing “unfair”
poll practices by allegedly distributing money and liquor to woo
voters.

The above report is the reason for High stakes for ruling BJP in Karnataka’s first & second phase

Because of the above mentioned report, Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa has said that the Bharatiya Janata
Party will win in 14 of the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies where elections
were held in the State on Thursday. He himself claimed that he has received
reports to this effect.Mr.
Yeddyurappa said that of the remaining 11 Lok Sabha constituencies
which would go to polls on April 30, the BJP would win in eight or nine
constituencies.Sadananda Gowda is also confident of BJP winning 22 seats in State

returning to the old SC/ST agenda and spent 30 minutes
of her nearly three-hour speech to party workers discussing a former aide who
has been elected as a Congress MP.

About 1,000 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers, including all ministers,
legislators, newly elected MPs and the defeated candidates from different parts
of the country, together with all district and zonal coordinators from Uttar
Pradesh, gathered at the party headquarters here.

According to a party insider, the meeting
went on for four hours, with Mayawati’s speech taking up most of the time. It
began and concluded with just one theme - a return to the old SC/ST agenda.

Her national ambitions dashed with her BSP managing
just 21 seats in Lok Sabha, Mayawati’s lengthy speech was focused on rethinking
the “social engineering” strategy, carefully formulated to also woo
the upper castes and abandoning its “only SC/ST” ideology, said a BSP
leader who attended the meeting.

While announcing dissolution of all party level committees, she declared at the
closed-door meeting: “The re-constituted committees will give precedence
to SC/ST.”

She voiced her disillusionment with Muslims who she accused of deserting her
party.

What took party workers by surprise was her nearly 25-minute reference to one time
blue-eyed retired bureaucrat P.L. Punia, who has won from the reserved
Barabanki Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket.

Punia was Mayawati’s principal secretary during her three earlier stints as
chief minister but fell out of favour when he gave a statement against her in
the Rs.175 crore Taj Corrridor corruption scam being investigated by the
Central Bureau of Investigation.

BSP leaders present at the meeting said her insistence on spending so much time
talking about the former Indian Administrative
Service (IAS) officer was disconcerting.

“Why is she devoting so much attention to Punia. After all he is just one
elected MP; by spending nearly half an hour talking about Punia, we are only
showing our panic,” a party leader told a colleague.

She said he did not belong to her most favoured lot among the SC/ST. “I
wonder if you all are aware that Punia does not belong to the ‘chamar’
(cobbler) community; he is a ‘danuk’ from Haryana.”

While Mayawati called a separate meeting with newly elected MPs Tuesday
evening, she has convened another on Wednesday when she proposes to make an
assessment of the votes secured by the BSP in the constituency of every
minister and legislator.

Party leaders holding prominent positions in the state council of ministers or
in the party hierarchy are likely to be pulled up if the party has not done
well. And insiders are worried that some heads could roll.

UP Elections Results

The UP General Elections Result 2009 is given below : Read as constitunency , Winner Name and Winner Party

SC/ST movement takes a beating

MUMBAI: The SC/ST movement across the country is at the receiving end
following the humiliating defeat of prominent SC/ST leaders. While
veteran leader Ramvilas Paswan lost in Bihar, former union minister Buta Singh
was defeated from Jalore, Rajasthan.

Closer home, Prakash Ambedkar, the great grandson of Dr Ambedkar, lost
from Akola, senior RPI leader Ramdas Athavale lost to a Shiv Sena
candidate Bhau Wakchaure in Shirdi, while Rajendra Gavai, the son of
veteran RPI leader and Kerala governor R S Gavai, was defeated by Shiv
Sena nominee Anand Adsul from reserved Amravati constituency.

“It’s all by design. Both the Congress and the BJP have defeated
prominent leaders of the SC/ST movement. They follow the use-and-throw
policy,'’ Ambedkar said. Athavale on Sunday put the blame for his
defeat squarely on the Congress.

Ambedkar, who was the President’s nominee on the Rajya Sabha during
the tenure of V P Singh, alleged that there was a systematic attempt
of the successive Congress and BJP-led government to silence the SC/ST
movement. “Emergence of Mayawati is one of the reasons for the
ill-treatment being meted out to SC/ST leaders. Ever since Mayawati
declared herself as a candidate for the prime minister’s post, fear
psychosis has set in among political parties,'’ Ambedkar told TOI.

He added that a few decades ago, politicians like V P Singh were of
the view that those associated with the SC/ST movement should be
accommodated in the mainstream. However, they have now been dumped for
obvious political reasons, Ambedkar said. “They (the Congress and the
BJP leaders) think that a powerful SC/ST movement will be a major
threat to political parties. It is a tough situation for the SC/ST
movement.'’

Athavale did not name any politician, but gave sufficient indications
to say that veteran Congress leader Balasaheb Vikhe Patil was
responsible for his defeat. Significantly, Athavale’s supporters on
Sunday burnt the effigy of school education minister Radhakrishna
Vikhe Patil to protest against his defeat. “Congress leaders, who have
a strong network of institutions, ensured my defeat,'’ Athavale said.

Athavale originally belonged to the Sharad Pawar camp. However,
following the delimitation of constituencies, it was decided to field
Athavale from Shirdi, a constituency allotted to Congress as per the
seat sharing formula between the party and the NCP.

Same was the case with Gavai, who lost in Amravati. Gavai, too,
contested as an Independent candidate, supported by the Congress-NCP
alliance.

Now, both Congress and the NCP have stepped in to pacify Athavale and
Gavai. “It was our responsibility to ensure Athavale’s victory. Now
that he has been defeated, we will rehabilitate him properly,'’ chief
minister Ashok Chavan said.

Discontent is brewing among SC/ST activists following the defeat of
Athavale and Gavai. “Both Congress and the NCP failed to allot safe
seats to them. When they knew that it would be difficult for Athavale
to get elected from Shirdi, they should have offered him another
constituency, ‘’ a senior SC leader said.

A section of SC/ST leaders blame Athavale and Gavai for their failure
to develop their own constituencies. “They have been in politics for
well over four decades, but all along, they were at the mercy of
either Pawar or the Congress. Now, these parties have ditched them,'’
the SC leader observed.

BSP supremo Mayawati’s social engineering formula, which reaped rich
dividends in the assembly polls, failed to click with voters this time
around with only a handful of Brahmins, Thakurs and Muslims winning.

Fresh from the 2007 experiment, the BSP had pinned its hopes on
bringing into its fold Brahmins and Muslims along with its loyal
votebank among the SC/STs.

The party, earlier known for its extreme views on the upper castes,
had liberally distributed tickets to Brahmins (20), Thakurs (six) and
Muslims (14) hoping that the votes of these castes along with its core
vote base would make a smooth sail for the party nominees but the
success rate this time was unlike the assembly polls with only five
Brahmins, four Thakurs and four Muslim candidates managing to win.
In the last assembly polls, the BSP chief had given tickets to some 80
Brahmins of which 42 had won their seats and the party had returned
the favour by giving them important positions in the government
besides going all out to woo them in the party fold by organising
Brahmin Bhaichara committees.

Even the BSP’s successful slogans belittling high castes were replaced
by new ones.

By bringing these castes together, the BSP chief had worked out a
winning combination for herself that could well put her on the
national scene and realise her dreams of acquiring power at the
Centre.

But elections this time have demonstrated a specific shift in the
Muslim and upper caste vote bank of other parties and to some extend
the SC/ST vote bank to the Congress in places where the BSP had
fielded Brahmin or upper caste candidates.SC: Constitution bench to take up relaxation in general category5/17/2009

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court has referred to a five-judgeConstitution bench the issue whether the candidates selected from thegeneral category can be allowed to be considered from the reservedcategories of OBC’s/SC/ST at the time of service allocation.

OBC/SC/ST who were selected on merit and placed in the list of generalcategory candidate could be considered as reserved category candidateat the time of service allocation.

Whether rule 16 (2) (3) (4) and (5) of CSE rules are inconsistent with16(1) and violative of Articles 14, 16(4) and 335 of the Constitutionof India.’ The Madras High Court had quashed rule 16(2) of the CivilServices examination rules which permits the reserved categorycandidates selected from the general category on merit to beconsidered as reserved category candidate during allocation of servicecadre like IAS, IPS and IRS etc.

In all 31 OBC category candidates selected in the general merit listwere not included in the general category and instead they were partof 117 OBC category candidates selected with relaxed standard and anequal number of OBC category candidates in the lower order of meritwere denied job.

The apex court in its 18-page judgment written by Chief Justice K GBalakrishnan for the bench noted, ‘In view of the fact that the issuesraised and discussed relating to amended rule 16 of CSE applicable toall central civil services, we are of the view that an authoritativepronouncement is needed, particularly, in the light of the variousdecisions referred above, hence, all these SLP’s and writ petitionsare referred to a Constitution bench.

It is also to be clarified whether the persons from reserved categorywho are already selected in the merit category without taking anyrelaxation/concession available for the reserved category candidatecan actually avail the better preference of service from the servicesunder reserved category list as that will be solely based upon thecaste of the candidate that is whether he is SC/ST or OBC as he hasalready been selected in the general category on the basis of hismerit only.’ Appeal was filed by the Union government and others.

UNIBSP’s vote share increases in LS polls

Poll result: Maya is still the queen in UP

Look at just the seat tally in Uttar
Pradesh and you are likely to come away with the impression that the BSP has
lost out big time in the state,

while the Congress has gained massively, the SP
has limited the damage better than many thought and the BJP has barely held on.
Examine the vote shares, however, and that initial impression gives way to a
more nuanced picture.

For starters, the BSP may have finished third
in terms of the seat tally, but it has become a clear number 1 in terms of
votes.

With 27.4%, it is now more than 4% ahead of the SP at second
spot. So why has this translated into just one seat more than the 2004 tally for
BSP?

One key reason is that unlike all the other three front
runners, the BSP’s support is more evenly spread across the state. Nothing
reveals that better than the fact that apart from the 20 seats the party won, it
finished second in 48 others.

In other words, in all but a dozen of
UP’s 80 seats, Mayawati’s men and women were among the front-runners. In
contrast, the SP won 22 of the 38 seats in which it was one of the two main
contenders. The Congress had an even better conversion rate, winning 21 of the
28 in which it was among the front-runners.

This higher strike rate
was clearly achieved due to the fact that the party’s votes were more
concentrated in a few constituencies than those of any of the other big players.
Thus it could win more than twice as many seats as the BJP though its vote share
was less than 1% more than the saffron party’s.

The BJP had a lower
conversion rate than either of these two parties, winning 10 of the 19 where it
finished in the top two rungs. But it would be more alarmed by the fact that in
over three-fourths of the seats in UP it wasn’t even one of the leading
contenders.

The relatively more even distribution of the votes this
time than in the past few elections in Uttar Pradesh helps to explain a rather
unusual statistic — while three parties have got 20 or more seats, none
has got to even 25, something that has never happened before in
UP.

While seemingly even, don’t forget that two parties — BSP
and Congress — are on the way up, while SP and BJP are on the decline. Of
course, compared to the 2007 assembly polls, BSP’s vote share is down too,
but it has always got more votes in state polls than in national ones.

Election 2009 has been remarkable in more ways than one. The mostobvious of course is that, in this era of fractured mandates, theCongress has got such a solid base—the party has more seats within theUPA than even the BJP had in the NDA during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’stenure, and that makes it relatively less open to blackmail. Thismeans Manmohan Singh can provide a clean government this time aroundand a lot more reforms—whether he can do this despite the Congress’sinternal Left is a different matter. Second, the caste warriors likeLalu Prasad, Ram Vilas and Mulayam Singh have taken a severe beatingand Mayawati’s elephant didn’t quite conquer the country. Lalu’s downfrom 24 seats to 4, Mulayam from 36 to 23, Paswan from four to zero,Mayawati’s up from 19 to 20 but a far cry from the 40 she was lookingat.

So is caste dead? You just have to look around to know it isn’t—it’slike saying the BJP’s drubbing shows India is a lot more tolerant thanit was in 2004 when the BJP got 182 seats. But caste is dead in thecaste qua caste sense. Of course Dalits are discriminated against andearn just around half what upper castes do on average (Rs 45,900 perhousehold per annum versus Rs 86,700 respectively), but how will 12statues of Mayawati and 8 of Kanshi Ram or 11 of elephants help narrowthis difference? OBC households, on average, also earn (Rs 59,700 peryear) much less than upper castes do, but after 15 years of votingLalu, OBCs in Bihar still earn just Rs 40,800.

Given that even the upper castes in Bihar earn just Rs 51,200 today(against an average of Rs 86,700 across the country), how can you sayLalu never improved the lot of the OBCs in Bihar? Since there is nohistorical data at a sufficiently disaggregated level, this isdifficult to prove (all income data cited here are from a book thatRajesh Shukla and I are writing, explaining how income and expenditurepatterns vary among various castes, across various education andoccupation groups, in different states, and so on). This is whatbrings us to Nitish Kumar and his campaign across Bihar.

Data from the NCAER’s latest all-India income survey, on which thebook is based, clearly show the big differences in income levelsacross castes doesn’t have as much to do with discrimination as iscommonly believed. As compared to a Scheduled Caste family living in avillage, an SC family living in a town with under 5-lakh persons earnsRs 62,300 per annum, or 60 per cent more. The average SC family in acity with more than a million persons earns Rs 82,560 a year. While anilliterate SC family earns Rs 30,630 per year, the average income goesup to Rs 52,434 if the head of the family studies till Class X, and toRs 109,147 if the head is a graduate.

This is what Nitish Kumar is aiming at. He may play the caste card toperfection in Bihar—in the sense of developing infrastructure incertain caste-pockets—but he knows this can only be a short-termstrategy. The overall strategy has to be to move villagers to townsand cities, to move them from agriculture to industry, to educatethem—he’s promising 100 per cent literacy, bicycles for girls whoreach high school, and more. Since even the poorest fifth of thepopulation spend 6-7 per cent of incomes on education, it’s obviousthey realise its importance.

The essential point is that you can’t fight election campaign aftercampaign on an old idea, and the BJP hasn’t had a new idea for a verylong time. When Rajiv Gandhi was alive, LK Advani would taunt him forbeing weak and not pursuing Pakistani terrorists across the LoC—it’salmost 30 years since, but the taunt remains much the same, never mindif the BJP’s track record is equally poor with the attack onParliament, Kandahar, and so on; kamandal versus mandal brought theparty to power and worked very well when VP Singh was dividing thecountry into as many castes as possible, but it has ceased to mattersince most Hindus think the Ram Mandir issue was over the day theBabri Masjid was demolished. The issue is not of LK Advani who, atlast, has offered to do the right thing by quitting; even tomorrow’sbright hope, Narendra Modi, speaks the same language of the past—he’stackling critical issues like getting water to different parts of hisstate, developing roads and ports, getting more industry to the state,and so on, but when he’s campaigning outside the state, it’s primarilyabout Christians and Muslims.

This may draw crowds, but the BJP’s not going to win by preaching tothe converted—the core or the hardline Hindu vote has got the party towhere it is, it won’t get much better. Here’s a thought: reach out tothe Muslims. All data show education is the most critical input toraising income levels and it is equally clear that none of those whoharness Muslim votes are interested in educating their youth sincethis may upset the clergy: Muslims are just slightly better off thanSC/STs when it comes to being educated beyond secondary school. TheBJP, however, has little to lose from this—it doesn’t get any Muslimvotes anyway. Will this alienate the BJP’s traditional voter-base?Possibly, but this is where leadership comes in. Gujarat would be agood place to start, considering the party’s prime ministerial hopefulhas the administrative capacity to make it happen.

CHENNAI: Mayawati’s BSP has made a humble beginning in Tamil Nadu. TheSC/ST party, which is not averse to taking along even Brahmins withit, contested in 37 of the 39 constituencies and polled a total of2,52,529 votes.In the pecking order, BSP now stands fourth after actor Vijayakanth’sDMDK in the state.

While the number of votes that went to the BSP was lowest in CentralChennai (2068), the highest number of votes went to Priscilla Pandian,who secured 39,086 votes in Ramanthapuram.

The other constituencies where the BSP’s votes touched the five figuremark were Thiruvallur (reserved) with 10,750 and Pollachi with 16,815.Such a vote share is significant in the context of the State alreadyhaving its own SC/ST political parties. The VCK, which contested theelection as an ally of the DMK and Congress, even saw its leader TholThirumavalan winning from Chidambaram (reserved) constituency.Besides, this was the first time the BSP contested elections in such abig way in the state.Though the BSP cannot be accused of splitting votes, there are a fewconstituencies where it had polled votes more than the differencebetween the winning and losing candidates. For example, in Pollachithe difference is just over 5,000 while the BSP’s number is 16,815.The vote share apparently indicates that the BSP may emerge as a forceto reckon with in future by trying to be part of alliances andcontesting elections more seriously.

NEW DELHI: Shaken by the drubbing her party received in the capital,
Mayawati now wants to meet her office bearers from block, district and
state
level and the seven Delhi candidates in Lucknow on Tuesday. And in a
first, the party will provide transport and incur all expenses of the
trip, unlike earlier when candidates and office-bearers were asked to
bear all costs. Over 100 members are expected to attend the meeting.

In another first, the BSP supremo called the meeting in Lucknow
immediately after the poor performance in Delhi rather than ask state
party in-charges to convene a meeting in the capital. Party insiders
say this is Mayawati’s way of ensuring direct dialogue with workers
and keeping the flock together. So far, Mayawati maintained a distance
from grassroot party mangers to protect her “importance. “

In this election and the last assembly poll, the BSP banked on the
money power of its candidates. During the Delhi assembly elections,
party national general secretary Nasimuddin Siddique had told the 70
candidates to manage all expenses including lodging of their “guests,”
leaders from UP who were managing their campaigns.

In this election, BSP fielded two billionaires Deepak Bhardwaj worth
Rs 604 crore and Kanwar Singh Tanwar worth Rs 153 crore, though none
could do the trick for the party. Bhardwaj ended up with only 44,111
votes. “The shift from winning Dalit votes to over-dependence on money
power did the maximum damage in all the seven Lok Sabha seats. Our
whole campaign of being a party of the poor and Dalit completely
failed as we became more popular for fielding the money bags,'’
admitted a party insider.

Although the state BSP unit is yet to calculate which way the Dalit
votes swung, quite a few party candidates admitted that the share of
Dalit votes in BSP basket was not more than 1%. “She became the
untouchable (beyond the reach) for Dalits and our Dalit vote bank
eroded,'’ said a party leader.

Here is detail of India Lok Sabha Elections 2009 - Party wise position